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Bonin Described As A Man Of Many Faces

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ed on taking the longer Highway 101 route, instead of the more direct 1-5 route. The 101 route winds along the coast, passing, ironically, through Atascadero where Bonin previously had been confined at the hospital for mentally disordered sex offenders. That route also has more hitchhikers. Following Bonin's arrest, Perkins and Demler said, police began to show great interest in any trucks Bonin delivered to the Bay area indicating an effort to link him to homosexual murders in that area. On May 27, Bonin brought 19-year-old James Munro to work with him, explaining that Munro was a friend in need of work. The people at Dependable were unimpressed with Munro. "Jim was so illiterate." Perkins recalls, "that when he took his test for his driver's license they had to read the questions to him." But Munro was streetwise, Perkins said, and talked a lot about how he had lived on the streets of Hollywood. He said he had been in Michigan with his girlfriend, Tammy, when she had a miscarriage. They then decided to return to California. Munro said, so Tammy called a friend in Long Beach, by the name of Stan, to borrow money for the trip. Stan had about 10 young girls living at his house, Munro said, and tried to talk Tammy into coming back without Munro. She refused, so he sent bus fare for both of them. 'He was a nice guy, and he When they returned, however, Stan was a very good worker. wanted Munro to repay the money he'd sent, and began to make threatening calls You could always count on to Dependable. him. He wanted to get into "Stan would call and threaten to break Jim's legs," Perkins said. "One time bowling, but he didn't bewhen Bill (Bonin) tried to talk to him, Stan cause he felt it might interthreatened Bill too. Stan would even call and harrass other drivers about his fere with his work.' money." She said Stan came to the lot from Long Beach on at least one occasion ing, but he didn't because he felt it might to pick up $10. interfere with his work." Munro called himself "The Bandit," She explained that Dependable provides around the company, and had a tattoo that drivers for people or to companies that said "bandit." Demler said they used have a vehicle that needs to be driven Munro on one or two small jobs, but felt he somewhere. Since a job might come up at was too unreliable. But he would show up anytime. Bonin did not want to encumber every day with Bonin, and would accomhimself with a bowling schedule that would pany Bonin on jobs. prevent him from accepting assignments, On June 2, Bonin, whose name had been she said. given to police as a possible suspect by a Perkins said Bonin always was in need young man who'd been raped by Bonin of money and, because the drivers are paid while hitchhiking in 1975, was placed under only for the trips they make, he always police surveillance. That same night, the wanted to make as many trips as possible. nude and strangled body of Stephen Jay This was the second time he had worked at Dependable "In the early 70s," Per- Wells was found behind a filling station in Huntington Beach. kins explained, "he picked up a friend of Wells is the last of the victims of the mine who was hitchhiking and brought Freeway Killer to date. Bonin was under him to the house where he (the friend) was constant police surveillance after that. In staying. I happened to be there and met fact, on June 5, Bonin, Munro and a fellow him When he said he needed a job. I told worker stopped at a McDonald's Restauhim he might want to apply at Dependable (her father, Ed Demler. owns the company) 'There was never any indiShe added that Bonin began work, then suddenly disappeared after about two cation that Bonin was a weeks. That was about the time of Bonin's bisexual with a distinct pre1975 conviction for sex perversion, after he forced a male hitchhiker at gunpoint to ference for men . . . Bonin have sexual relations. never made any sexual adJust as suddenly as he had disappeared, vances to anyone around the Perkins said, Bonin reappeared at Dejob.' pendable "Because he had worked for us before, we d i d n ' t even run a credit check on rant near the Dependable lot; while they him." Ed Demler explained "We ran him were inside, several men came into the through DMV. and he came back with a restaurant and robbed it. clean driving record." Demler smiled "One of the detectives told us that there ruefully, "We had no way of knowing that was nothing they could do," Perkins said. it was clean because he'd been in prison." "They didn't have a two-way radio, and if Dependable is a small company, where they interrupted the robbery. Bill would everyone gets to know everyone else. It is realize he was under surveillance. So all on a moderate-sized lot, surrounded by a they could do was sit there and watch." cyclone fence Customers' trucks occaDuring that final week, Perkins said, sionally are parked overnight in the lot, so Bonin appeared to be worried to the point a massive grey guard dog patrols. of distress. There is a trucker's lounge in the shed"But when I asked him what was wrong, like buildings, but often as not the drivers he said it was financial problems that he hang around the office, talking to Demler had to make payments on the blue Chevetor Perkins. te he'd just bought, and he had to pay $300 Bonin was simply one of the boys, Dea month on second trust deed on his mler said. He had a girlfriend, Mary, who mother's house. I didn't think anything of was married to a serviceman, Perkins it." added, and Bonin had told her that Mary's Munro seemed less worried. He showed husband knew about the relationship and Perkins a birth certificate with the name apparently did not object. Bonin would go James Edward Massive on it, and said his to church with Mary on Sunday, or go foster parents had found him in Germany, bowling with her. Perkins said. adopted him, and that he had become a Demler sheepishly recalls how he was naturalized citizen. He was almost totally always kidding Bonin about "all his dependent on Bonin, everyone agrees, to girlfriends " There was never any indicathe extent that he would say, "Bill said I tion that Bonin was a bisexual with a could do this, or Bill said I could do that," distinct preference for men, Demler said. Demler said. Perkins added that Bonin never made any On June 11, Munro borrowed Bonin's sexual advances to anyone around the job. car, so when Bonin was ready to go home, But he did have some quirks. Demler drove him to the house on Angell He was obsessed with the Freeway Kilstreet. The police followed. Then, when ler For a period of several months, The Bonin got into his van and headed for Register was the only newspaper that carHollywood, they fell in behind. ried extensive coverage of the Freeway Perkins said a detective told him they Killer's activities, so every day Bonin watched Bonin pick up a hitchhiker and would arrive at work with a copy of the drive to a parking lot off Santa Monica paper. If a strangling victim had been Boulevard, where they arrested him for found the day before, Perkins said, Bonin committing sodomy on the youth who, it would inform his co-workers that "he's turned out, was under age. done it again." The next day, Munro showed up at work When other newspapers began to join in around noon. Demler and Perkins were on the coverage of the Freeway Killer, concerned because Bonin was never late Perkins said. Bonin would come to work without calling in. lugging an entire armload of newspapers. "Do you think Bill's been arrested?" Bonin also had driving quirks. On one Munro asked. When asked why he would trip to New York, when several vehicles think that, Munro replied that Bonin had were being driven back, Demler and Bonin gone into Hollywood with his van the previmade the trip "But he wanted to go his ous evening. They said Munro became own way," Dernier said, explaining that extremely nervous. Bonin wanted to take a different route, and Then Bonin's girlfriend called in to say travel alone. he'd been arrested as a suspect in the On that trip, Demler saw Bonin pick up a freeway murders. hitchhiker "and was furious, because Munro tried to tune in newscasts on the t h a t ' s s t r i c t l y against the company arrest, Perkins said. "We really didn't rules." want him around, so, since he still had Demler said he and Bonin had several Bill's car, we told him he should return heated arguments on that trip Bonin also it," which Munro did. made frequent trips to the San Francisco The police called the next day inquiring Bay area, Demler said, and always insistabout Munro, Perkins said, and she told sporting plastic monster fangs. The bar patrons, however, were defensive of the elder Bonins feeling they were suffering for what an errant son may have done. However, as people who know William Bonin were interviewed, it became evident that some still feel a certain fondness for him. Two young men in the neighborhood had opposite experiences with him, they said. One said Bonin had propositioned him sexually; the other said he had known Bonin for years and had always been treated with great respect. Bonin used to pay him $10 to mow a small yard, the youth said, and would offer him a ride if the boy was walking. He said Bonin never made advances. Benin's dichotomous personality comes into better focus, however, at the Dependable Drive-Away Co., 546 S Greenwood Ave , in Montebello. This was Bonin's last place of employment, and one of his codefendants, 19-year-old James Munro. worked there for the final two weeks preceding Bonin's arrest on June I I Mrs. Marion Perkins, the petite, no-nonsense office manager at Dependable, said flatly, "He was a very nice guy, and he was a very good worker You could always count on him He wanted to get into bowl-

James Munro
him that he was supposed to pick up $10 that he had coming and that he was coming in at noon. Munro came in about 11 a.m., however, to get the money, then left. He was not seen again until he was arrested in Michigan on July 31. He voluntarily returned to California, and has denied any guilt in the murder of Stephen Jay Wells on June 2. To date that is the only murder charge lodged agains him. Bonin's best friend, Everett "Scotty" Fraser, when interviewed following Bonin's arrest, spoke of him in glowing terms, saying, "Everybody likes him, as

far as I know. He's nothing but mellow and nice." However, "Scotty" later changed his story when arrested on a narcotics charge. Los Angeles Police Department detective Kirk Mellecker reportedly has said that Scotty quoted Bonin as saying he had picked up a German student who was hitchhiking and that the student, after agreeing to have sex, attacked Bonin while they were undressing. Bonin reportedly said he had stabbed the student to death. Bonin also reportedly said that Vernon Butts, a friend, was present at the time. Butts has since been arrested and has been charged as an accomplice in six murders in which Bonin is also charged. Police say they expect to charge Bonin in a minimum of 21 murders, and that the total could go as high as 28. Police are also believed to be looking for a third accomplice. Police refuse to disclose the nature of the evidence against Bonin, but there are reports that Vernon Butts is cooperating in the investigation. They also claim to have physical evidence linking Bonin to some of the murders. Perkins said Bonin's mother called him after the arrest and said that during a police search of the Bonin house they had taken the sheets from Bonin's bed. She said Mrs. Bonin said her son had wet the bed the night before and she hadn't changed the sheets yet. At Dependable, Perkins said, "I guess we shouldn't prejudge Bill. But if he gets out of this, you don't think he'll try to come back to work here, do you.?"

Angry Mob Jeers Iranian D.C. Rally

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months ago at the beginnng of the Iran hostage crisis that such demonstrations could cause confrontation and violence. White House Press Secretary Jody Powell spoke to reporters as the protesters assembled in Lafayette Park. Powell said that a permit for Iranians staging a hunger strike outside the White House would not be renewed. "On what grounds?" he was asked. "Sufficient," he replied. Powell said that Carter had ordered the Justice Department to investigate reports that the 192 Iranians who were jailed in New York were treated with kid gloves and released prematurely. In Queens about 50 immigration officers called in sick protesting Tuesday's "haphazard" release of the Iranians. One of those held in New York was not freed; he was returned to Washington for prosecution on a felony charge of assaulting a police officer. In the protest Thursday, an Iranian woman passed out in the heat and had to be removed by ambulance. At least two Americans were arrested for throwing debris at the demonstrators. A similar pro-Khomeini demonstration here two weeks ago caused a melee among protesters, passers-by and police officers that led to the 192 arrests. Thursday's demonstration was comparatively tame. Protesters blasted what they said was "police brutality" in the arrest of their countrymen 11 days ago. Those arrested then wound up in jail the women at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, the men at the federal prison in Otisville, N.Y. After initially refusing to give their names, and risking federal prosecution, they finally identified themselves and were freed. They arrived at the Shia Islamic Center in Woodside, Queens, and found themselves virtual hostage to angry residents Wednesday night as they prepared to leave for Washington to attend Thursday's march.

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